Archives for December 2025

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

by Daniel Hathaway

Finnish composer Jean Sibelius was born on December 8, 1865, an event The Cleveland Orchestra staff marked in an amusing little 2019 video. “Things got a little crazy as you can see.”

The composer’s symphonies have been played frequently by the ensemble over the years. Here’s a rare performance of the four-movement version of the Fifth from December, 1941 led by Artur Rodzinski (taken from 78 rpm discs with side breaks left intact).

There’s also a recording of a live performance of the Second led by George Szell in May, 1970 in Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan Hall. More recently, here’s a rehearsal snippet for a performance of the Second led by Dalia Stasevska in March, 2024.

Finland — which didn’t yet exist as a country when Sibelius was born — celebrates the composer’s legacy each year on December 8 with “A Day of Finnish Music.” Although, rather like Rossini, he stopped composing in mid-life, he has inspired a widespread national educational initiative which has produced a distinguished list of musicians, classical, folk, and popular. [Read more…]

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

Here are our top classical music recommendations for this weekend, culled from our master concert listings calendar. Especially in the leadup to Christmas, there are many other worthwhile performances to support in Northeast Ohio, many of them free and close to where you live. Have a look at our two-week concert listings here.

Canadian early music guru Bernard Labadie leads The Cleveland Orchestra, Chorus, and soloists Liv Redpath, soprano, Tim Mead, countertenor, Andrew Haji, tenor, and John Brancy, baritone, in George Frideric Handel’s 1741 oratorio, Messiah on Friday and Saturday at 7:30, in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center.

The CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra will play four concerts around the metropolitan area under the direction of James Feddeck and featuring violinist Laura Hamilton, cellist Mingyao Zhao, oboist Virginia Kao, and bassoonist Sue  Barber in Joseph Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante. Concerts are Friday at 7:30 at St. Noel Catholic Church in Willoughby Hills, Saturday at 7:30 at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus, Cleveland, and Sunday at 2:30 at Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church, Cleveland.  All are freed but donations are welcome.

And Les Délices, Cleveland’s usually French Baroque period instrument ensemble will branch out in four “Noel, Noel” concerts featuring soprano Elena Mullins Bailey in English carols, French noëls, German hymns, and festive Baroque music by Michael Praetorius, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, and others on Friday at 7:30 at Westminster Presbyterian in Akron, Saturday at 7:30 at Fairmount Presbyterian in Cleveland Hts., and Sunday at 4 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River. Tickets available online.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

On December 5, 1791, Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, who preferred to be called Wolfgang Amadé, died in Vienna after being bedridden for a fortnight with what was officially described as “severe miliary fever,” characterized by a rash that resembles millet seeds. [Read more…]

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7, the Baldwin Wallace Symphony Orchestra premieres a new double concerto for violin and cello by faculty composer Clint Needham (pictured) in Gamble Auditorium.

Tonight at 7:30: The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus present Handel’s Messiah, Bernard Labadie, conducting, at Severance Music Center, and James Feddeck leads CityMusic Cleveland at Fairmount Presbyterian.

Note: Tonight’s Oberlin Musical Theater performance is sold out.

TRANSITIONS:

Gramophone reports that “As The Takács Quartet approach the end of their fiftieth anniversary, the ensemble has announced that cellist András Fejér will retire at the end of the 2025-26 season. Fejér is the last remaining member of the original Takács Quartet lineup, which formed in 1975. Read the story here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1976, England and the classical music world lost one of its greatest composers when Benjamin Britten died in Aldeburgh, Sussex, at the home he shared with his partner, tenor Peter Pears, and in the village where he and Pears had established the Aldeburgh Music Festival in 1948. [Read more…]

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 6 pm, Cleveland Chamber Choir sings William Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices, English madrigals, and three pieces by Cleveland composer Judith Eckelmeyer, in the Donna and James Reid Gallery at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Also at 7 pm, an Akron Bicentennial Concert features Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony in E.J. Thomas Hall.

And at 7:30 pm, CIM Perspectives with Mike Block, cello, Yacouba Sissoko, kora, and Jamey Haddad, percussion, melds West African and American traditions in original compositions and folk repertoire in Kulas Hall.

Note: Tonight’s Oberlin Musical Theater debut is sold out.

INTERESTING READ:

Pianist and CIM professor Antonio Pompa-Baldi, who performed in Kyiv with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine over the weekend, published his account of visiting and giving a concert in a country during wartime. Click here to read his report in its entirety, which he shared on his public Facebook page.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Italian luthier Nicola Amati was born on this date in 1596 in Cremona. The most prominent member of the Amati dynasty, Nicola is said to have greatly influenced the work of Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri, although his cellos and violins appear more frequently in museum exhibits than in the hands of today’s artists. [Read more…]

The world-class concert music we enjoy in Northeast Ohio deserves robust promotion and coverage. Since 2008, ClevelandClassical.com has served as a one-stop guide to that art form with comprehensive concert listings, previews and reviews of performances, and links in the Daily Diary to the wider world of classical music — including jazz. On this Giving Tuesday, we hope you’ll consider a gift to help keep this publication alive and vital. Click here, and thank you!

HAPPENING TODAY: 

[Note: The Olson recital has been cancelled due to inclement weather.]

Two events take place at noon in University Circle. Organist Chase Olson plays Charles-Marie Widor’s Symphony No. 9 complete at the Church of the Covenant, and the Song Recital Project presents baritone Jason Fuh and pianist Betty Myers in a program inspired by Don Quixote, including selections from Jules Massenet’s opera, songs by Maurice Ravel and Jacques Ibert composed for G.W. Pabst’s 1933 film, and selections from Mitch Leigh’s Man of La Mancha, in the Atrium of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

INTERESTING READS:

In the New York Times, concert pianist Jonathan Biss writes about the quest for perfection in music. Click here to read A Classical Pianist’s Plea To Let Art Be Messy, And Real.

And writing in Aeon, British classical guitarist Craig Ogden suggests How The Classical Guitar Becomes One Of The Most Complex Instruments, In A Good Musician’s Hands. Read his essay here. [Read more…]